The Luke Cage Syllabus: A Breakdown of All the Black Literature Featured in Netflix’s Luke Cage

On September 30, 2016, I was excitedly looking forward to discussing Luke Cage and its many allusions to hip hop, which included Notorious B.I.G.’s portrait, Method Man trading hoodies with Luke, and each of the episodes bearing the titles of Gang Starr songs. I was feeling it like I was in the bodega with Method Man and about to rush him for the bullethole-filled hoodie. Of course, my students stared at me as I dared them to get excited too, which is what most students do these days until they watch it and see that I am not telling them to watch the sleepiest, most convoluted show possible. So, before I went back to talk to them on Tuesday morning, I devoured all 13 episodes.

The hip hop allusions and appearances were crushing my entire heart — the opening sample of the Ghetto Brothers; appearances from Faith Evans, Dapper Dan, Fab 5 Freddy, and Jidenna; paraphrasing B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments;” when Luke calls two thugs “Plug One and Plug Two” like De La Soul; Misty Knight referencing Raekwon’s “Ice Cream” and Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones” in a particularly poignant monologue; and Method Man chopping it up with Sway and Heather B. My two obsessions entwined on this show — hip hop and books. Books are such a significant part of the dialogue in key scenes, and how often does any show feature a Black man with an affinity for books — as any character, much less the lead?

There are obvious references to Malcolm X and James Baldwin, and Harlem Renaissance writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston make requisite cameos. They should, but the more I watched the show, I kept thinking about how other characters reference history and names, and all I could think was #LukeCageSyllabus #Season1. So, here are some of the books that appear in scenes, and fill in the blanks if you missed some serious Black history moments.

The books on Luke Cage’s bed in episode 1: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, a book by Julius Lester — a collector of Black folklore, and Attica by the New York State Special Commission on Attica. In this quick scan of books, the first-time viewer sees Luke’s love of history and literature pop out on the screen. On display is his deep understanding of Black life and masculinity, and what it means to be someone who can shift things from the periphery to the center, even if they are incarcerated, is paralleled by those books.

In a scene in Pop’s Barber Shop, Luke debates with Pop and Bobby Fish about some of the more recent descendants of hard-boiled mysteries, including Black pulp fiction masters like Donald Goines and Chester Himes. During that conversation, Luke Cage clutches a copy of Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins’ mystery Little Green while Pop extols Goines’ character Kenyatta as one of the first Black radical literary heroes (the protagonist in four novels, Crime Partners, Death List, Kenyatta’s Escape, and Kenyatta’s Last Hit.) The beauty of these sorts of exchanges is not just that there are these moments of reveling in Blackness, but it also stresses how Black readers have a variety of influences and disciplines that they’re engaged by as readers. When Luke mentions George Pelecanos (novelist and writer on The Wire), Richard Price (author of Clockers), and Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River), it’s only the beginning of what Luke and his fellow characters mention throughout the season. With those texts in mind, here are some others.

Luke Cage’s beginnings as a scientific experiment are not too far from the truth, especially since his power resides in his skin. Acres of Skin discusses the history of medical experiments on Black prisoners that helped make skin grafts possible. A more recent book that chronicles medical experiments on Black people throughout America’s history is Harriet A. Washington’s Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.

Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America by Quincy T. Mills.

The history of Black barber shops as a gathering place is not surprising, and when people congregate and share ideas in Pop’s Barber Shop or metaphorically refer to his spot as “Switzerland,” Mills’ book offers some insight into why barber shops are about more than cutting hair.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang

If you don’t get the hip hop references, Jeff Chang’s survey history of hip hop’s beginnings will probably help, but it also talks about the concept of “benign neglect” and how public policy, politics, and social conditions helped create hip hop. One of the key players in that scenario is Robert Moses. For more on him, there’s Robert A. Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.

At this point, hip hop has left its mark on fashion. The documentary Fresh Dressed shows how hip hop artists invented their own fashions out of necessity and have become trendsetters in elite circles. Free Stylin’ is the scholarly take on how hip hop changed fashion.

Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence by Geoffrey Canada

In one scene, Cottonmouth Stokes mocks his cousin Mariah for wanting to go “the Geoffrey Canada route.” Canada is best known for his book Fist Stick Knife Gun and founding Harlem Children’s Zone. Another book about Canada and his work is Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough.

Where’s Waldo? by Martin Handford

Since Misty Knight visualizes the logistics of every crime scene through photographs, she explains how she was always the fastest at finding Waldo as a kid. This is the only children’s book mentioned.

Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem between the Wars by Shane White

Wealth-building in Harlem was also part of an underground economy that allowed some Black business owners to support local artists, athletes, and other businesses, even if they ran numbers, prostitution rings, prohibition-era night clubs, and racketeering in movies like Hoodlum or The Cotton Club. There are other history books that, like this one, mention Stephanie St. Clair, a woman very much like Mama Mabel in Luke Cage. Another book worth reading next to this one could be Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto by Camilo José Vergara.

Diamondback, one of Luke Cage’s adversaries, touts The 48 Laws of Power and carries around a heavily annotated edition of the Bible that his mother gave him.

Negroes and The Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms by Nicholas Johnson

Another nod to Diamondback is when he insists to Mariah Dillard that the history of guns in America is built on creating fear towards Black people after Reconstruction, when the Ku Klux Klan rose to prominence and Jim Crow began to thrive. Johnson’s book not only relates to Diamondback’s point, but also reveals the tension between self-defense, politically radical violence, and the nonviolent practices of the Civil Rights era.

In the last episode, Luke is holding a copy of The Heat’s On by Chester Himes. Luke also mentions Michael Connelly, author of the 21 existing Harry Bosch novels.

There so many allusions and references sprinkled through this thirteen hours of television. Add any I may have missed, or that you think are required reading, in the comments or on Twitter with the #LukeCageSyllabus tag, so we can find it.

April

Coworkers and I were discussing the tv series Luke Cage had no ideal of the authors or the Moms Mabley reference until hearing on the show. We could only hope that Netflix brings this back for another season and quick! Please continue to putting these syllabus together. My goal is to read some of the books mentioned. Knowledge is power.

Thomas McVeigh

Tara

Bob Bruning

Thrilled to find your work. Hoping to successfully translate your insights + video clips + live band into a 5-minute multi-media presentation before a few hundred attendees this May. Might you please be interested in very light assistance?

Afro Deva

This show has given me so much life I am making myself wait to finish the last 3 episodes to prolong the ecstasy!! Thank you for taking the time to compile this. My bookshelf is already on overflow, but I don’t have a few of these!!!

Wendy

klyn

as i watching the show there were many books i knew of and had read and others i had not. There were a bunch I didnt know. Today at I work I thought i need to start reading again. I wanted to start with some of those mentioned in the show. I googled books mentioned in Luke Cage and wow look what i found. thank you thank thank you!!!!!

Tony M. Vinci

Thank you for this. I feel such joy and gratitude watching interesting, intellectually-engaged black male characters argue about popular and canonical black lit. It’s exciting to see these cultural histories take center-stage in a popular superhero narrative. Maybe other Marvel shows and films will learn a thing or two from Luke Cage. . . .

Defenske

Beaver Brown

Loving the series. I noticed some of the references and thought it was just a fluke. The more I watched the mire I picked up. I read quite a few of the books mentioned, and will be rereading them and others mentioned. Amazon better have extra copies for all the new orders anticipated.☺

wolf (@rtwolff)

Dan

What a great article, thank you! Found this after searching for the book being described in the episode “Just to Get a Rep” – where one of Stoke’s men suggests leaving Cage alone. The “benign neglect” reference.

Any idea to what book he was referring? I’d love to get my hands on it. And I will most definitely be checking out many of the above books you’ve cataloged. Thanks!

Mika Antonia

The phrase “benign neglect” was made popular by a memo from Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Richard Nixon: “The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.’ The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over to hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides. We need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_neglect

Martha Garvey

Tara

Lorenzo Fiorito

Both the medical experimentation and the boxing for spectacle are nods to the “Battle Royale” and electroshock scenes in Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” Diamondback’s reference to “owning the bakery” is a sly reference to Malcolm X’s nationalism, and how it might be taken in many directions.

Lorenzo Fiorito

Justine

How about the bible bruh? smh That should have been listed first and last considering that WE are the LOST sheep of the house of ISRAEL! Which is why they have suppressed our education and done experiments on us… they don’t want us to wake up! We are the ones who LOST our identity and must come back to the Laws Statutes and Commandments spoken of in scripture. Deut 28:68 Egypt = Bondage America is Bondage…. The slave ships are spoke on of in the scriptures listed as one of the curses that would be fall the people of the Most High God if they turned their back on him and followed after other nations. Only one people went into bondage by way of SHIP! Wake UP!! READ…

jplime

Matte

Mariah’s litany of black political figures warrants a whole article of its own. One that leaped out at me was Shirley Chisholm, who was very nearly the Democratic presidential candidate in ’72. She reeled them off pretty quick, so a re-watch might be necessary…

Ama

lizz

Hey! Great info. Maybe I can get some help. In episode 6 (I think) in Cotton mouth’s office he is having a meeting about what to do with Luke Cage. One of his workers starts reading from a book, mentioning ” benign neglect”. Cotton Mouth ends of killing him. Does anyone know the book he was reading from?

Korey Smallwood

Allie

amazing post! find it so awesome that Black literature was so prominent in this show. i was coincidentally listening to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (describes the life and history of HeLa, cancer cells taken from a Black woman without her consent in the 50s) prior to starting the show, which led me to researching more of the ways black people have been exploited in the name of science/medicine. came upon your post and now I’m simultaneously listening to that, starting Medical Apartheid, and also slowly making my way through Luke Cage. the undertones within the show referring to medical experimentation on Black people and my current reads are creating a fascinating, shocking, enraging, and exhausting experience.

Maggie McGinn

I would add “At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power,” by Danielle McGuire, which details the sexual terrorism of black women across the south and subsequent emasculization of their men. Not directly referenced, but certainly informs psyche and behaviors of men and women characters, as well as plotlines.

Kwesi K. Francis

madgadabout

Re: Where’s Waldo – it actually isn’t the only kids book mentioned. Scarfe references Horton Hears a Who in Ep. 2. That scene is right before the barbershop scene where Luke & Pops discuss Donald Goines, Walter Mosley, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, and Chester Himes. Easy to lose track of such a small call out, but interesting that both of the main cops reference kids books.

Angel

Corey

I love that you were tracking these. They are an awesome reading list to add to mine, and thank you for listing them along with related books.. I feel like the level of cultural/social/personal dilemas and content they keep sifting and confronting in Luke Cage is amazing. Ditto the music and art. I’m trying to figure out what some of the books on the bottom of Luke’s pile (under “between the world and me” and “The Force”) are in season 2 episode 4, but I can’t make them out. Are you going to do a Season 2 list? Incidentally, While I intially wasn’t going to even see the Punisher (who needs another white man on angry rampage with gun I thought), a good friend reccomended it and it has a similar thing with the books, though obviously different material. Also as a visual artist, I’ve been watching he amazing color compositions they get in every shot. Luke Cage is all about yellow, shaded by green, but when different elements crop in, colors shift. It’s really obvous if you watch Defenders because they each have a color (red Daredevil, Blue/purple for Jessica, Green for Ironfist, yellow for Cage), and as they interact the colors in the background highlight the character interactions. The amount of thought they are putting into these shows is impressive, but Luke Cage takes the cultural cake by miles.